Seminar on health services research

Loyola University Chicago Health Sciences Campus OFFICE OF RESEARCH SERVICES SPECIAL SEMINAR and DISCUSSION

Chicago LEARN: An Opportunity for Collaboration in Hospital-based Patient-Centered Outcomes Research in Chicago 

• by David Meltzer, MD, PhD Chief, Section of Hospital Medicine Director, Center for Health and the Social Sciences The University of Chicago 
•  Monday, September 24, 2012 9:00 - 10:00 p.m. SSOM, Room 460        
• Dr. Meltzer and Dr. Julian Solway will be available after the presentation to discuss Chicago LEARN and the University of Chicago CTSA.                
• For additional information, please contact: Richard H. Kennedy, Ph.D. Vice Provost, Research and Graduate Programs                            

The Chicago Learning Effectiveness Advancement Research Network (Chicago LEARN) Chicago LEARN is a partnership of the three Chicago-Area Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) institutions, UHC, and other Chicago-area health care institutions to perform cutting–edge, patient-centered comparative effectiveness and outcomes research for patients hospitalized in academic medical centers. Such research is integral to the vision of a learning health care system and requires diverse data sources to support a range of study designs.  For randomized clinical trials, Chicago LEARN’s capabilities include the ability to effectively screen for, recruit and consent, characterize, intervene on, and obtain long-term follow-up on patients. This is supported by linkages to electronic health records and, often, payer administrative data that allow utilization to be tracked even when it extends outside a health system. For molecularly informed trials, LEARN can obtain consent for and collect biospecimens. For observational studies, LEARN links to existing data sets on large scale, and can efficiently perform primary data collection and obtain consent for data linkages needed for observational and experimental studies. Following the vision of a learning health care system, LEARN seeks to enhance the quality and cost of data acquisition by integrating data collection into routine clinical care processes and applying continuous improvement approaches. UHC’s member base of nearly all U.S. AMCs provides opportunities to expand the reach of LEARN studies nationally and perhaps to provide an important national model for comparative effectiveness research.

Initial funding for the development of LEARN was obtained from a competitive supplement to the University of Chicago CTSA from the National Center for Research Resources (2011-2012). Additional funding to date includes renewal funding of the University of Chicago CTSA (2012-2017) and a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Innovation Challenge Award (2012-2015) to study the effects of increased continuity in the doctor-patient relationship on costs and outcomes for frequently hospitalized patients.  With funding from AHRQ, Chicago LEARN centers are also collaborating to complete a study of the effectiveness of pharmacogenetic vs. clinically guided warfarin dosing among hospitalized patients.

 Chicago LEARN Participants:

• The University of Chicago CTSA:  (The University of Chicago,  Rush University Medical Center,  Northshore University Healthsystem,  Mercy Hospital)
•   The Northwestern University CTSA 
•  The University of Illinois at Chicago CTSA 
•  UHC (formerly University Healthsystem Consortium) 
•  Loyola University Chicago and Loyola University Medical Center (in Development) 
•  John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County (in Development) 
•  Jesse Brown and Edward Hines Veterans Administration Hospitals (in Development)